Nationality and Borders Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and she anticipates a point I was about to make. The key point that arises from her remarks is that the British Government have, sensibly and rightly, introduced the British National (Overseas) visa, which allows people in Hong Kong who registered for that scheme before the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 the right to settle in this country. The problem is that many of the dissenters and demonstrators in Hong Kong are under 25, and therefore too young to have qualified under that route as it currently stands. I seek to give under 25-year-olds that route as well.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on having tabled this new clause. It speaks of the decency of what we represent here in this House, and I support him in that. Does he agree that right now, many of the individuals he is referring to are desperately looking to us for some hope of freedom? We as this, the mother of all Parliaments, need to offer them the chance of that freedom.

[Damian Green]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. Most of these young people are fighting for the values that we fight for and that this Parliament represents—that I why I am so pleased that Members across the House have supported the new clause. In practical terms, I have thanked Ministers for being positive in their engagement, and I hope to hear more from the Minister when he winds up the debate.

Although the Government are moving in this direction, and their heart is in the right place on this, I fear that at this stage they may not move far enough. In particular, I know the Minister is keen on using the youth mobility scheme, which exists not just for Hong Kong but for many other countries, as a route for young people in Hong Kong to move towards settlement. However, I will enter two quite large caveats about using that scheme.

The first is straightforward practicality, which I can illustrate by the example of a 19-year-old young woman from Hong Kong called Venus—that is not her real name, for obvious reasons. She was involved in many protests, and the university she was at reported those protests to the Hong Kong authorities. She evaded the police for a time, but she soon became aware that they were coming for anyone involved in protests, under the pretext of the national security law. She fled to the UK from Hong Kong the day after, and several of her friends were arrested two weeks later. If she had applied through the youth mobility scheme, it would have taken at least three weeks for her to get out of Hong Kong, which would not have been enough. That is a practical point about using the youth mobility scheme.

My other point is that the youth mobility scheme is reciprocal, requiring both sides to agree. If the Chinese authorities, or the Hong Kong authorities, decided not to participate in a reciprocal scheme, they could close it down tomorrow. What would Ministers do in those circumstances?